Hendersonville two-piece folk band only gets better

“Wilderness,” released June 10, is the second full-length album by Wintervals, a two-piece folk band from Hendersonville, NC. The new LP represents the evolution of a relationship.

Lisa Tyler and Trevor Walker met at The Ugly Mug coffee shop in Hendersonville when they started working together. After a few joint acoustic shows, the singer and musician respectively wrote their first song, “Afterall,” and realized their synergistic potential.

Trevor Walker and Lisa Tyler of Wintervals. Photo by Jeff Haffner.

“I’d had more songs ready for another solo album of mine and I didn’t like what I had written lyrically,” Walker said.

Tyler continued his sentence before I even realized the speaker had shifted. “And I wrote some lyrics to most of them. Then we wrote some new songs from scratch, and we liked what we had.”

Wintervals home-recorded their first album, “Can’t Win For Losing,” on loaned gear and released it in September 2015.

“There were no intentions like, ‘We gotta start a band,’” Tyler explained. “It was more like, ‘Hey, that was fun,’ and we were just recording it to have it. When people liked it, we had it pressed through disc makers. Word started going around, so we mixed it and made it sound a little better.”

Fast-forward one year, and Lisa and Trevor started dating; two years to today, and they’ve released their newest collection of songs with a full-band concert at Southern Appalachian Brewery in Hendersonville.

Since Tyler and Walker had recorded more parts than the two could perform live, Walker’s childhood friends filled in the remaining roles. With Wilson and Grant Billingsley on guitar and bass and Wayne Redden on drums, Wintervals were able to put on a full and energetic show.

Wintervals played their album release show on June 10 at Southern Appalachian Brewery in Hendersonville, NC. Photo by Amanda Faivre.

“It was amazing,” said Tyler.

“It was the funnest time we’ve ever had,” Walker said. “We had only practiced maybe three times, but we’ve been playing together for 10 years, so it was natural.”

Tyler added, “There was no moment like that, where every thing happened so naturally and fell into place just right.”

Redden, whom Walker has known and played music with since seventh grade, said “Wilderness” showcases their musicianship and talent, as well as their connection.

“There’s an intimacy between those harmonies – between Trevor’s chord progressions and the melodies, the music bed and the lyrics – that wouldn’t be as real, as palpable, if they weren’t together,” the drummer said. “The songs grab you by the gut.”

“Wilderness,” recorded by Andy Bishop at Giraffe Studio in Hendersenville, represents the shift and progression not only in Tyler and Walker’s musical adeptness, but also in their personal lives.

Both members of Wintervals confessed that they were in tough places when they wrote their first album. While they described that record as “darker, more minimal and folkier,” they said the new record is much more accessible and consists of tracks that could be categorized as country, rock, Americana and even pop.

Trevor Walker and Lisa Tyler of Wintervals. Photo by Garry Segal.

“When you put it on it’s still a Wintervals record,” Lisa said. “But it’s more of a rock record.”

Trevor agreed. “Compared to first one, anything would be a rock record,” they laughed. “It’s more upbeat, but still emotionally driven.”

“We’ve reached a better point now,” said Tyler. “We’re pretty comfortable with where we’re at. We’ve moved in together; found better jobs. We’ve had this really natural reconnection with people and now we’re just livin’ life. We’re more stable, and you can see that in the music.

“We didn’t even plan to put [the first album] out, so we didn’t think of how it would feel for people,” she went on. “The structure was minimal and reflected what the songs were about. They were more spacey with room for the songs to breathe. The new record is more busy. It says, ‘This is the kind of album I am.’”

Neither Walker nor Tyler works at the coffee shop anymore. Walker is a video and audio producer, and Tyler works at a flower shop. Even though the couple feels more comfortable, they identified time as their biggest obstacle.

“Time in general is the biggest enemy for any musician,” Tyler said. “We all have full time jobs, and Wilson, Grant and Wayne have their own bands too. Even just for me and Trevor, time is the enemy. Booking, updating your press kit, practicing and writing new songs. It’s all you do when you’re not at work.”

Photo by Trevor Walker.

The couple is continuing to play shows and plans on releasing more music eventually, but for now they don’t want to rush things.

“I wanna make sure that we never feel like we’ve gotta put songs out,” Tyler said. “If I’m going through a dry spell where I’m not inspired, I’ll deal with that until it comes back. For this record we sat on all these songs for well over a year.”

Walker shared the same opinion. “If I’m not feeling it, I put it away. I’m not gonna force something. If I have a chord progression or a riff, I record it to my phone and save it; if there’s a line I like, I put it in my notes. That’s how we’ll write the best music.”